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I want no part of the PSD party, if there was an elite PSD party of the compromising liberals, compromising conservatives and the moderates I would be down. But in all reality talking about issues with many on here is as productive as trying to convince a brick wall to move. (not that they are dumb, some are but most aren't, it just that the type of people that talk politics are often completely uninterested in discussing, and mostly interested in telling people how they are wrong ).

Originally Posted by MrPoon

man with hair like fire can destroy souls with a twitch of his thighs.

Abortion
Pro-Choice for obvious reasons. It's a woman's body and they have a right to choose and it doesn't do any good bringing unwanted children into this world. Orgs like planned parenthood are a great thing for both sexes. People need to be informed.

Welfare
I'm split on this. You can't just cut off so many people who are already dependent on it whether you think they are a burden of the state or not but I think their should be VERY HARSH penalties for Welfare fraud and strict monitoring policies. I agree with drug testing and a limit on the number of children allowed. These people who who are on it and keep popping out kids are just out of their minds.

Economy
Tax's should be brought up to pre-Bush levels end of story. Low taxes on the rich isn't some kind of god given right. Raise taxes. Military spending needs to be cut DRASTICALLY. The Military budget is RIDICULOUS. Entitlement reform is also necessary. Social Security needs to be abolished for anyone under 40, those people should be given back what they paid into it. Medicad needs to be done away with too with Obamacare around.

Education
I think this should be handled on a state level. I dont know what the federal govt can do about a problem that doesnt have a one size fits all solution but I do think federal money and grants should be given to Public schools that meet certain critieria.

Homeland Security

Healthcare
Obamacare

Nuclear energy/missles
Nuclear is garbage and mess waiting to happen see Japan.Stem Cell Research
This shouldnt even be a hot button issue. This is necessary to advance science.Environment
EPA standards should prob be higherWar/Foreign Relations
GTFO of the middle eastPolitical Corruption
put term limits on congress/senate. They get paid to do nothing.

I like this idea. This will be work in progress, and I will take your template and run with it. I will add as I ponder over and brainstorm accordingly, besides finding the time to complete this. Abortion
Allow abortion, but regulate it heavily. Gov. funded abortions should be extremely hard to come by and should only be available to rape victims. More important than abortion laws is the issue of unnecessary or acceptable pregnancies and potential parenting. I have long believed that a long term solution to many of the problems of our deteriorating society could be stifled if we could find a way to strictly regulate procreation. The bottom line is way too many people are having children when they are either unqualified for the task, and as a result, we have more and more orphans, single parents, violence, uneducated people, and health issues. The "right" to procreate at will should be relinquished, since an overwhelming portion of society clearly can't handle the responsibilities.

Welfare
Frequent drug tests, and strict enforcement of the parameters should scare off many of the freeloaders of welfare and other loopholes for the genuinely lazy.

Economy
I will come back to this when I have the time.

Energy
I will elaborate on this later as well.
For now, we need to focus on green energy, and transition towards dependence on our own oil sources, not those overseas.

Education
I have long believed that education is a right, not a reward. Education is power, and the less educated the population, the less democratic we become, and the closer we become towards total dependability on the elite. Education should not be earned, paid for, or kept from, from anyone, regardless of color or socioeconomic background. Do away with ivy league schools, and the privatization of education, and offer the same education to all citizens. future generations should not be born into a social class that limits or facilitates their academic future. It should be a right, guaranteed to all citizens, just like the very air we breathe.

And education should not be merely a stepping stone towards a more profitable job, but a means of bettering one's self and growing, and obtaining the ability to share with others and teach others, not best them and take advantage of them. The main problem with education aside from the monopoly and funding restraints is the whole approach of society towards education to begin with.

Homeland Security
Work in progress, I will get back to this.Healthcare
same as above.Nuclear energy/missles
" "Stem Cell Research
" "Taxes
This one is huge. As above, I will come back to this at a later date.Environment
" "War/Foreign Relations
We don't need to be at war with anyone, that's the bottom line. We have enough issues and wars at home. Bullying other nations will only get us so far, and it will more often than not, cost us more than what we could hope to gain from them. Maintain positive relationships with our allies but restrain from combat unless it's absolutely necessary. It's a lost cause, as all wars are for economic gain in one way or another and will always be, but coming from a 6 time OEF/OIF veteran, it does no good in the end, and the externalities of war are forgotten. It's not getting us anywhere and it never has.
How someone can turn away from thousands of innocent people getting massacred every day and instead focus on "issues" like racial stereotyping on a catwalk by Victoria's Secret is hypocrisy at it's finest, and is a prime example of what it wrong with our society.

Don't get me wrong, I am not "anti-war" as it is popularly coined in the US, I am anti-insanity. And repeating the same approach towards conflict and international relations and expecting different, or even favorable results is insanity. It's also irrational.

Keep our military strong and capable of defending the nation with effectiveness, don't deploy them on wild goose chases in the name of "America" or "patriotism" or "the greater good" every chance you get.

Too many brothers have I lost in combat, in order to fatten the pockets of politicians and corporations.Political CorruptionThis isn't an issue with politics, it's an issue with human nature.

I want no part of the PSD party, if there was an elite PSD party of the compromising liberals, compromising conservatives and the moderates I would be down. But in all reality talking about issues with many on here is as productive as trying to convince a brick wall to move. (not that they are dumb, some are but most aren't, it just that the type of people that talk politics are often completely uninterested in discussing, and mostly interested in telling people how they are wrong ).

Economy/Taxes: Fair Tax or a flat tax with a $20k single deduction. No other exceptions or deductions. Regulations are not inherently good or bad. Get rid of the bad ones and keep or increase the good ones.

Military: Pull back all foreign permanent bases. Military action should only be carried out legally under the constitution.

Education: This needs to improve drastically. I'm inclined to think more control at the state level will improve outcomes through more innovation but I would keep federal control if they were able to use their clout to make real changes. Don't know but this should be a priority.

Healthcare: We have universal health coverage already, just extent Medicare to everyone and be done with it. Still room for private insurers.

All the other stuff is less important and likely to increase divisiveness so I'll end my platform here.

Abortion.........This is a State issue, as nowhere in the Constitution does the Federal Government have any authority on this issue. This is also a benefit to freedom as the people would have more choices. Some States would allow it and some wouldn't. But people could a vote with their feet this way. Having 9 people in Black Robes dictating to 300 million Americans isn't freedom to me.

Welfare..........This is equivalent to theft. In order for one person to get something from Government, it must be stolen from someone else under the threat of force. Force is Not Freedom. No one has the right to initiate force upon someone else ( including Government ) in a Free Society.
I am equally opposed to Corporate welfare. Again this is Government taking our money under the threat of force to give to Private Businesses.

Economy.......We as a Nation need to get back to a truly Free Market. Government intervention into the Market in so many ways has destroyed the economy. Lobbyists buy Congress to create regulations helping Big Business and keeping out Competition from other. Not to mention all the Millions upon Millions of regulations that make it impossible for smaller companies to flourish....Way to many hoops to jump through to get anything done. Taxes must also be cut drastically. Government must also be cut to offset this.
If the Government would get out of the way the Free Market would Thrive!.........The Federal Reserve Inflating the Currency is also a Major problem for the economy. The market must also set the Interest rates......Not private bankers.

Energy........The Market has determined that Fossil Fuels are the most efficient way to power our daily lives for now. If alternative energy sources were a good idea the Private Businesses would have already invested. When the Government gives our money to these companies , subsidizing alternative energy it is just money down the rat hole.

Education......The Federal Government has no business or authority to be involved in Educating the Citizens children. Like any other Goods or Services the Free Market does it best through competition. Cell phones and TV's quality has gone way up over the years and the Cost has come way down. That's due to Competition.
A Government monopoly like education , the Quality ( test scores ) remain flat or have gone down and the cost is through the Roof! It should at least be left to the States to deal with. The more local the choices are the better.

Taxes......The money is always best left in the hands of the Private Sector, and not in the hands of the Government. Government needs to be cut back to it's Constitutional Mandate and taxes need to go away. Get rid of the IRS and the Income tax. There is no need for an income tax. In fact there wasn't one until 1913....The same year the Federal Reserve came to be.....

I'll take this country back.

Quote:
Originally Posted by justinnum1
Wade will be a lot better next season now that he got knee surgery. Hate on. - 7/31/2012

Abortion
Absolutely. Covered by insurance, available in clinics that receive funds from the government.

Welfare
It's always interesting to me to watch successful people come out against Welfare. It's one thing to say something is unnecessary when you've had no need of it, quite another to be eating tonight because of it. In any system there will be people that abuse it, whether welfare from the government or charity from a church. How that is an argument against the system itself, which it seems to me is unquestionably necessary, is beyond me.

Economy
I'm in favor of it? I'm not really sure what to put here. Go economy!

Energy
I break with a lot of my fellow Democrats and leftists in supporting more nuclear power, but that includes the development of better and safer nuclear reactors, and an honest discussion about the benefits and dangers. None of that is happening as it should. We should also invest, heavily, in alternative energies. Corn ethanol is a loser. Solar isn't, yet. The fact that millions of Joules of energy pours into our deserts every second of every day and it isn't soaked up by solar panels is an absurd waste, and one we should be working to fix. We need higher fuel efficiency standards, more research into "green" technology, and the ability to trust scientists when they reach a consensus on something.

Education
The idea that education is local just strikes me as blindingly stupid. Potential in a child should not be wasted because he's born in Mississippi instead of Massachusetts. Religion, of course, has no place in the class room, and there should be zero hesitation on the part of educators to teach the science as we know. Evolution happened, climate change is happening, and students should learn these things.

Homeland Security
I don't have the answers to balance security with freedom, and I don't really know that anyone else does either.

Healthcare
The idea that other countries can give their citizens "free" health care while we cannot is short-sighted, naive, and wrong. We need to get beyond our "America is the most specialist!" attitude and look to the way other countries do things that work. The simple fact is, every time someone dies because of something that could've been treated, but wasn't due to economics, it is a tragedy. Plain and simple. There's just no reason for it. People complain about health care costs, and then don't want to pay for things like preventative care and care for the poor that could bring so much of it down. I'm sorry if keeping your neighbor healthy means you get a Tall instead of a Venti at Starbucks next time (I'm not, actually, sorry).

Nuclear Energy/Missiles
More of it.

Stem Cell Research
This sort of goes into the healthcare thing. The potential for so many therapies, treatments, and cures are in stem cells, and almost entirely for non-political, non-scientific beliefs it is being stopped. Eff that. Research the hell out of this. Research it all the time, everywhere.

Taxes
I'm not going to pretend to have even some of the answers here. I think those at the top need to be taxed more, those in the middle less. But economics is far from my strong suit, so...

Environment
Let's not do anything about it. Let's just let things take their course. Who needs polar bears and coastal cities, right?

War/Foreign Relations
I'm torn on this. Iraq was pretty clearly a mistake, Afghanistan at least a little more necessary, but both are a mess. That said, when something like Rwanda happens, I think it is our duty as members of the human race to intervene. I don't care about all this "we shouldn't be the police of the world" ********. If genocide is happening, it must be stopped. Eddie Izzard, though a comedian, hit the nail right on the head: "Kill your own people and we're pretty much fine with it. It's when you start killing other people that we have a problem." It's true, and it's ridiculous. I'm not saying we go in for decades, we start nation building, or any of that. But Rwanda, Darfur.. these things cannot happen while we sit idly by, and only afterwards say "never again!" Of course, all we really mean is "never again... until the next time it happens and we say all this over again."

Gay Marriage
I'm pretty much over talking about this. If you do not support marriage equality, you are a bigot and I'm not terribly interested in exchanging ideas on this with you. History will look back on you and shake it's head sadly, just as we do with other civil rights issues from our past.

I'm in tears.

Quote:
Originally Posted by justinnum1
Wade will be a lot better next season now that he got knee surgery. Hate on. - 7/31/2012

Abortion.........This is a State issue, as nowhere in the Constitution does the Federal Government have any authority on this issue. This is also a benefit to freedom as the people would have more choices. Some States would allow it and some wouldn't. But people could a vote with their feet this way. Having 9 people in Black Robes dictating to 300 million Americans isn't freedom to me.

I have trouble thinking about the idea of denying a person an abortion simply because they live in a certain state. Just doesn't really make any sense..

Welfare..........This is equivalent to theft. In order for one person to get something from Government, it must be stolen from someone else under the threat of force. Force is Not Freedom. No one has the right to initiate force upon someone else ( including Government ) in a Free Society.
I am equally opposed to Corporate welfare. Again this is Government taking our money under the threat of force to give to Private Businesses.

So I should go murder someone, and under your logic no one has the right to impose force to stop me by law or physical strength?

Energy........The Market has determined that Fossil Fuels are the most efficient way to power our daily lives for now. If alternative energy sources were a good idea the Private Businesses would have already invested. When the Government gives our money to these companies , subsidizing alternative energy it is just money down the rat hole.

Why don't you think the government should make an effort to invest in clean energy sources? Fossil fuels are not unlimited resources..

Education......The Federal Government has no business or authority to be involved in Educating the Citizens children. Like any other Goods or Services the Free Market does it best through competition. Cell phones and TV's quality has gone way up over the years and the Cost has come way down. That's due to Competition.
A Government monopoly like education , the Quality ( test scores ) remain flat or have gone down and the cost is through the Roof! It should at least be left to the States to deal with. The more local the choices are the better.